Robert Jewett gives back, one home at a time

Growing up in rural Massachusetts, Robert Jewett remembers a life of hard work and rewards. It's a life that took him off a New England farm to college in Washington, D.C., and eventually to a school administration job in Fairfax, Va. He's quick to note, however, he didn't do it all alone.

“So many people helped me every inch of the way,” he said.

Now retired in Georgetown, Jewett has spent recent years helping others. At age 80, he has volunteered with Habitat for Humanity for nearly three decades, helping families build a place that they can call home.

“Volunteers are wonderful,” he said. “The first thing you learn is they aren't about I, my, me.”

That sense of giving was something Jewett learned at a young age.

Jewett grew up in Westborough, Mass. – a farming community 30 miles west of Boston. He lived on a farm, but his parents were tenant farmers who did not own the land. At 10, he said, he started working on the farm for pay. By 14, owners of a local waste management business – Tidy Town – offered him a job that included work clothes and meals.

“They paid me very well,” he said.

So well, Jewett said, he even considered making it a career. Especially after his father died when Jewett was 17. But his father always wanted Jewett to try college, and Jewett's high school football coach also convinced him to continue with school.

A four-year scholarship to play football for George Washington University in Washington, D.C., made it happen.

“My coach said I was capable of playing both ways and for four years,” Jewett said.

Play he did, serving as co-captain for the only George Washington football team to ever win a bowl game. In 1957, as a heavy underdog, the team traveled to Texas to play in the Sun Bowl. Opponent Texas Western was favored to win but instead suffered a 13-0 shutout by the East Coast team.

“Nobody gave us the chance. We used that as the device to beat them,” Jewett said. “I don't think anyone thought we would win.”

Jewett looks back fondly on his days of football; his 6-foot-2-inch frame at 200 pounds is the same as it was in college, he said. He brought the same work ethic he learned on the farm in New England to the playing fields of college.

“I played every position on the line, depending on the needs of the team,” he said. “The end result was I never came out of a game.”

In 1958, Jewett earned a bachelor's degree in physical education from GW and got married the same day. He fell into coaching with the same ease he moved through previous stages of his young life, eventually hired by prestigious Georgetown University as its track and field coach. During his time with the Hoyas, his team set world records and beat the Russians during an international matchup.

“We beat the Russians in five straight races back when Russians won everything,” he said.

He also helped recruit and integrate black students into the predominately white campus. Jewett smiles back on his achievements at Georgetown with satisfaction, knowing he left the school in 1965 in better shape than when he arrived.

“I felt I had accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish,” he said. “I helped integrate Georgetown and coached world-class athletes who all graduated.”

Jewett's next chapter was filled with many changes. After 10 years of marriage, his wife ran off with her boss at the Pentagon, leaving him with their three young children: Andrew, Aubrey and Sarah.

The family lived in Fairfax, Va., where Jewett put his master's degree in school administration to use in the Fairfax County School District. He eventually married a woman with two children, but she died nine years later. A year later, he married Kelly, a divorced friend with two children of her own. They've been married for 39 years, he said.

Jewett chuckled while remembering the dalliances of the 1960s and 1970s – a time of free thought and choice that ended in divorce for many couples.

“We can find humor in how things worked out,” he said, tilting back his head in his easygoing fashion.

With a blended family of eight, Jewett said, he and Kelly began vacationing in Rehoboth Beach.

“I dearly loved the area because I thought it was beautiful. Still do,” he said.

The couple bought a swath of acreage along the border of Georgetown and Millsboro and spent summers camping in the woods until one rain drenched July convinced him to build a log cabin. In 1984 after Jewett retired from the Fairfax County School District, they moved to the area for good.

Forever the student, Jewett took the opportunity retirement gave him to learn something new: how to build homes.

When he heard about Habitat for Humanity, he immediately saw a need in Sussex County.

“I wasn't smart enough to create the organization, but I knew it was worth it,” he said.

So, in 1987 he decided to hold an organizational meeting for the nascent group in Georgetown. Only one person showed up.

“The joke was one person came. She cried and said, 'I was hoping you'd build me a house and no one is here,'” he said.

Undeterred, Jewett called a second meeting. This time, he said, 10 people showed up: ministers, contractors and people interested in fundraising. All who attended the meeting became members of the board, Jewett said.

Since then, he said, the organization has built hundreds of homes alongside families who are willing to put in the sweat equity in order to have a home of their own.

“What happened here was not difficult,” Jewett said. “Now it's a problem to find enough work for all the volunteers.”

Still as fit as ever, in body and mind, Jewett stays up-to-date on current events. He may call Sussex County his home, but a piece of Washington, D.C., is still with him – don't get him started on politics unless you're prepared for a long debate.

Jewett continues to help people build homes of their own, although he's promised his wife that he'll stay off roofs. With a sheepish grin, he admits briefly breaking his promise when he helped his Georgetown neighbor with a new roof.

This fall, the couple is planning a trip to Arizona that will include building homes for Habitat for Humanity.

“I love this work, and I'm going to keep doing it as long as I can,” he said.

The way he sees it, it's his way of giving back.

“I had a startling number of people who helped me growing up. People treated me like a son,” he said.